Vintage 4 C&O RR AUTOFERRIES LUDINGTON, MICHIGAN CHESSIE COASTERS MINT

Description

From many years ago, Mint SET OF 4 The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway / The C & O / B & O Railroads AUTOFERRIES LUDINGTON, MICH. CHESSIE Beverage Coasters.  White background with dark blue lettering and design w/ Sleeping Chessie Cat logo in center. Backside has a waterproof covering.  These are a disposable type.   Measures approx. 3.25" diameter.  Please use zoom and enlarge when viewing items for details.  Nice items for collector of railroadiana memorabilia or for a Chessie Cat memorabilia collector.  Please ask questions before bidding.
Fifteen automobile and railroad ferry boats (such as S.S. Badger and S.S. Spartan) crisscrossed Lake Michigan as recently as the early 1970s, connecting the Wisconsin cities of Milwaukee, Manitowac and Kewaunee with Muskegon, Ludington and Frankfort on the Michigan side.  By 1975, the C&O railroad, which had purchased the Pere Marquette Railway some years earlier, was no longer interested in operating car ferries, citing the rising costs of vessel upkeep, increasing labor and fuel costs, and advances in railroad technology. After a long and bitter abandonment proceeding before the Interstate Commerce Commission, the C&O finally exited the car ferry business in 1983 when it sold its three remaining ferries to the newly created Michigan-Wisconsin Transportation Company.
The
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
(reporting marks
C&O
,
CO
) was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P. Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Richmond to the Ohio River by 1873, where the railroad town (and later city) of Huntington, West Virginia was named for him.
By the early
1960s
the C&O was headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. In 1972, under the leadership of Cyrus Eaton, it became part of the
Chessie System
, along with the Baltimore and Ohio and Western Maryland Railway. The Chessie System was later combined with the Seaboard Coast Line and Louisville and Nashville, both the primary components of the Family Lines System, to become a key portion of CSX Transportation (CSXT) in the 1980s. A substantial portion of Conrail was added in 1999.
C&O's passenger services ended in 1971 with the formation of Amtrak.
Chessie
was a popular cat character used as a symbol of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. Derived from an etching by Viennese artist Guido Gruenwald, the image first appeared in a black and white advertisement in the September 1933 issue of Fortune magazine with the slogan "Sleep Like a Kitten." The advertisement makes no mention of the cat's name.
When the ad generated a positive response, the railroad developed an advertising campaign around the image and chose the name Chessie as a derivation of the railroad's name. The promotion proved widely popular and, in addition to national print advertising, grew to include calendars, clothing, and even two children's books about the character.  1935
Chessie acquired two kittens named "Nip" and "Tuck", as well as a mate named
"Peake" in 1937.
. During World War II, the Chessie character was used to promote War Bonds and support for the war effort, depicted as working on the home front to support Peake, who was off to war. The Chessie image continued to appear in advertising until 1971 when passenger train travel was consolidated under Amtrak.
When in 1972 the C&O merged with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and Western Maryland Railway, the newly formed company was named the Chessie System after the popular image and adopted the "Ches-C" logo, which incorporated the silhouette of the kitten into the "C" of the railroad's name. The Chessie System later merged with other railroads to become the CSX Corporation. Though the Chessie logo is no longer found in advertising and was phased out of usage on trains, Chessie is still the mascot of the CSX Corporation, and there are many examples of rolling stock that still feature the kitten logo, having yet to be repainted.